This invention relates to content based filtering techniques. More specifically, to a method of limiting the number of observations of a repeating information item.
In commercial television broadcast, whether are by wireless radio frequency broadcast, cable or satellite transmission, a significant portion of the broadcast time is devoted to advertisements for products, upcoming programming or station identification. For example, in the United States, network television broadcasts, product advertisements, i.e., commercials, are distributed within the theatrical portion of the broadcast regularly at 15 minute intervals. In some cases, the distribution of the theatrical image are more frequent, occurring, for example, at ten minute intervals.
Commercial and other non-theatrical interruptions, while needed to fund the production and transmission of television programs, become an annoyance to the viewer, as the same non-theatrical images are repeated in a single broadcast or, even, over multiple broadcasts of the same or different programs. The viewer is subjected to such a barrage of repetitive commercial content in order to impose the message upon the user.
Techniques for extracting commercials and other non-theatrical information items in a television broadcast are well known in the art. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,668,917, entitled, Apparatus and Method for Detection of Unwanted Broadcast, issued Sep. 16, 1997 to Lewine. Techniques disclosed therein may be used to remove all commercial and non-theatrical information from a received broadcast. However, removing all commercials and non-theatrical information items is not advantageous, as some commercial and non-theatrical information items provide information that is useful and helpful for a viewer. For example, the announcement of a future feature presentation is useful in making the viewer aware of such upcoming events. However, repeating the same announcement, within the same or even over multiple broadcasts, provides no additional information to a viewer. Similarly, repeating a weather pattern or a traffic report, which includes no additional information than a previously reported weather pattern or traffic report is merely an annoyance to a viewer or listener.
Thus, there is a need to selectively filter non-theatrical information content from broadcast transmissions to allow a limited number of viewing occurrences of new, or previously observed, commercial or non-theatrical content so as to avoid excessive repetition of commercial or non-theatrical information content.
A method of limiting the number of observations of repetitive non-theatrical images from transmission signals containing theatrical images and non-theatrical images is disclosed. The method uniquely identifies each non-theatrical image using a signature that is developed, preferably, from an audio component of the non-theatrical image. The identifiers are recorded in a data base and a count of the occurrence of each non-theatrical image is maintained. When a selectively set known number of occurrences of a specific image is determined, the specific image is precluded from being viewed further. The dynamically constructed data base may further be applied to other transmission signals to preclude the viewing of non-theatrical images that are recorded in the data base and repeated in the other transmission signals.
Other features of the present invention will become apparent from the following detailed description considered in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.